


Lighting From Mars

by Abby_Ebon



Series: It's Not A Rabbit Hat [48]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HeidiFox’s prompt: Harry as a protective spirit, summoned when the person wearing an heirloom feels deathly fear or is in need. there is a way to trick him into coming, up to you, but i insist that he is in a centaur like form in armor when he is called to protect! any pairings must be slash please! (“Falling From Stars”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lighting From Mars

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Falling From Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/469658) by [Abby_Ebon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon). 



> If you've read my "Falling From Stars" ID# 2900231; this is a sort of "afterwards" of it; in Greek myth, the constellations Centaurus is Pholos, whose confused with Chiron; his wine cup is Crater ; Saggitarius is Krotos, a hunter and companion of Muses; and Melanippe a daughter of Chiron who was turned into a black mare and hid in the stars. I don't hold with any myth that Chiron ever died, as he was as much a god as Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, and Demeter, who are after all his siblings.

Mortals who became Immortal by falling from stars, passing from one dimension into another, slipping and sliding, well, something from that mortality was bound to be broken, to fall with the Immortal. So Mars, who had been mortal once, a wizard, never learning fully what it meant to be either – went to his Immortality not knowing what he had lost and given away in that mortality.

 

Harry Potter he had been, a name unknown to him, but not without title of the Boy Who Lived.

 

It hung from by twined hair – his own, and that of Adios’s. It shined like mercury made solid, softer than any silver metal, it was lightning; it was –had been - his scar.

 

Mars let his lightning fall but once – that once was enough. It was lost. It fell far and fast, foreword and back, and Mars was tied to it, ever after he would be bound by who held his scar, his heirloom.

 

Mars knew that not, until he felt a fear not his own, and heard a prayer, a plea, he had to answer to. 

 

Mars he had been named by centaurs, by those he called kith and kin in Black Forest, by the Clan-Herd of Fleet-Foot, adopted by his mother Aswan, his sister Osakis, and his brother Hordi.

 

Mars after all, was not mortal, was Immortal, and shape and form did not define him – he defined his own shape and form.

 

So he felt it right and proper to take a centaur form when summoned by that wild fear and stinging, singing, need. 

 

0o0o0

 

Firenze has his blond hair and blue eyes, and he stares at the sky. He is not nearly as wise to the ways of the heavens as Bane, but he knows what he sees, and what it means with Mars, shining bright and bloody.

 

He fingers the lightning of Mars, and wonders, worries.

 

It was an heirloom, as far as Firenze ever knew before. There are constellations that tell of its heavenly origins, stars which Bane knew the reading of better than Firenze. Firenze can read what is to come, what may be, the warnings and omens and small signs the heavens give so that the forewarned may be forearmed.

 

The Forbidden Forest is not the true name of the forest which sits beside Hogwarts, it’s called _forbidden_ for the sake of little wizards and witches who might otherwise wander in.

 

So it is called to keep a peace. Firenze has ever heeded what is to come, rather than the history of what was. When he was a foal, Magorian had taken him far from this forest. Into another, the forest called Black.

 

There he had learned something of the history between heaven and earth, that there were Immortals, and once they had been many. Now there were three, the Maiden, the Mother, and the Grandmother; they did not give their names. Names the Immortals did not need, for mortals had given them many.

 

Firenze looked to Venus, which gleamed as a star, the first to be seen at dawn, the last seen at evening.

 

“They say lightning does not strike twice.” Bane speaks softly, regretfully.

 

Firenze feels a sick, twisting jolt in his spine; he knows that Bane has told their people that he saw Firenze with a human burden upon his back, no more noble than a mule; a beast, not a being. His eyes catch Bane’s dark ones. There is no warmth in them, only warning. It makes Firenze flinch, his tail twitching as if to swat away a stinging fly.

 

“The lightning does not heed what they say.” Firenze had met the Lady-Grandmother, had felt her hands open his and close them upon the lightning he held, hanging from the twined hairs of Immortal men. She told him it would keep him safe, that it was meant to be where he would go. He wares it around his neck with pride. He is its entrusted keeper, the bearer of lightning that shines like mercury made solid, softer than any metal, an Immortal scar cast from the heavens.

 

“You would know. Firenze, you must go.” Bane looks to the woods, they are still and dark, but the sky is bright with stars. The council can not have made his fate yet; they have until the evening star fades to call him, to tell him. One way or another….he would live, or die with Venus at dawn.  

 

“This is my only home, Bane, where am I to go?” Bane does not come closer, does not dare. The forest may be dark, but its eyes are many, and its spies have reason to watch Firenze tonight. If he flees to live, he proves them - him –Bane, right, he’s a beast; fearful of the judgment of his people against him.

 

A part of Firenze fears them; he can not lie to himself. They brought him into this world, raised him in the wood, and they can kill him with that same kindness.

 

“You can not stay here, Firenze, they will kill you. The Moon and Mars are bright, this is a poor night for any kind of council, and their madness is going to shadow every thought.” Firenze swallows his sick feelings, he stands, steady and four footed and determined.

 

“I won’t go, Bane. You know that.” They had been foals together, and Ronan had taught them together as if they had the bond of brothers. If ever they did, it is because of that bond that Bane had warned him, and stands at his side until they hear the screams of centaurs, enraged and raging.

 

“I won’t see you die like this Firenze. Don’t ask it of me.” Bane is bigger than Firenze, bulky and black and wild haired. He watches the woods, while Firenze cradles the lighting around his neck and looks to the sky.

 

“Skygazer.” Bane pleads, the old foal name, before they chose their own names. Firenze can not help but smile, it is strained but sweet. Then the screams and stomping of hoofed feet, like thunder rumbling upon the land, making the entire world tremble, is upon them. 

 

Firenze sees hooves flying to strike at his face from the corner of his eye, and jerks away – away from the hooves and away from Bane. One body, than another and another part them, Bane screams in the face of another, who draws a spear against Bane’s protest. Bane is best with his bow and arrow, flank to flank he can do little, but Firenze holds the lighting, and it is weapon enough that he was never taught to fight.

 

A buck of hind hooves punches into his side, and Firenze falls, gasping for breath and speechless. Blunt fingers reach down, snatching the lightning, pulling it forward, up and away. He tries to take it back but his hands are held at his sides, his body pinned down, trampled upon.  

 

_They are taking it!_ Firenze thinks, freezing like a foal.

 

But the hairs that bind it about Firenze’s neck are Immortal, and they do not break. They drag Firenze up with the lightning. And he can’t help but cry out at the pain digging into his neck- the hairs won’t part, won’t break, they would sooner take off his head with it.

 

_Help me, oh help me_! Firenze gets a look at the clenched hand that would take off his head by the lightning alone; and the stars above that frame the body of his killer. He can not see the face, it’s all shadow and blurred.

 

But the stars, oh how bright they are – how beautiful (why did he never think them lovely?) if this is to be his last sight, it is not a bad night to die.

 

The lightning flashes in the hand that holds it, burning, blazing, and Mars is red, red as blood.

 

The screams of rage are now of fear.

 

“You will let him go, now.” Firenze could not see the fellow centaur that would have taken his head, taken his lightning, but he sees who speaks, for the others – they shy from him. His shadow falls upon Firenze, and Firenze remembers long ago, that Magorian had told him – there are gods of centaurs, any Immortal can take any shape.

 

This shape suits him, Firenze thinks, if it is not his own, he wares it handsomely.

 

Black haired, as wild as Bane’s but a body that was not big and muscled, but slender and sleek; centaurs rarely will wear anything over bare flesh, but this one he wears armor that shines golden under the moonlight, and his green eyes burn like fire. He is fierce and proud, and they know him one and all for Mars that burns at his back. He is Immortal, Firenze knows, and can not help but stare.

 

He plucks the lightning up, Immortal black hair twined with black, and the lightning that burns bright in his cradled hands like a star.

 

“Who are you?” Firenze can not help but ask, fruitless as it is to ask an Immortal to name themselves he must.

 

“In the Black Forest, those who raised me called me Mars.” Something like a smile passes those solemn features, but it is fleeting. Mars takes up Firenze’s hands, and into them passes his lightning bolt scar, his mortality, and his humanity.

 

“I shall guide you, Firenze, do not fear to walk away from the Forbidden Forest, to come and go as is your right. You are needed elsewhere now, but you may return, and if you are not welcomed, I will guide you where you will be.” A star falls, and it catches the glance of the Immortal who smiles up at the heavens as if he sees them for something other than what they seem to be.

 

There are stories that go with the stars, but Firenze sees them as Mars does just for a moment, the black mare Melanippe hiding in plain sight, Krotos as he was rearing up, aiming his arrow down, down upon them all.

 

Pholos peers from the dark night, his offering wine cup a ready peace offering, poised and patient; centaurs all of them.

 

Mars smiles at him, as if he knows what Firenze has just seen though his eyes, and perhaps he has.

 

It is a secret he never speaks, but when Mars helps him to stand and steadies him as he proves his deeds as good as his words, guiding Firenze to a giant’s hut, the gamekeeper’s door.

 

Mars knocks, and Hagrid answers; his warm smile of greeting waning with the light of Venus as he finds Firenze upon his doorstep, beaten bloody and alone. Hagrid does not ask for a explanation, says nothing, as he stands face to face with Firenze and wraps a arm around his shoulder, hugging him tight and warm, like he’s done something good.   

 

Firenze finds himself being half walked, half carried into Hogwarts’ main hall, where the staff are at breakfast. Madam Pomfrey at once sees the sight of him and with outrage in every word demands he be taken to the hospital wing, at once, and without so much as a word of explanation (what, hw wonders, is a hospital wing?) or a by-you-leave, it is done just as Madam Pomfrey wills.

 

Only when she says he’s better, toward nightfall, does he get a visitor.

 

Albus Dumbledore, robed in stars, does not ask why, or how, for he is wise and has a mind and memory to know without being told.

 

“What do you want here, Firenze? I must warn you, Madam Pomfrey does not take kindly to her patients undoing her hard work.” Albus smiles, to take the sting away. It still hurts, of course, not his body for Madam Pomfrey has her title of Healer for a very good reason. It’s the rest, it’s his heart that hurts, and yearns.

 

“A home, Headmaster.”  He’d want a home anywhere, but here is as good as anywhere – and better, better than the Forbidden Forest by far. Firenze does not quite trust that his people, merely at Mars’s say so, will let him back into the forest to live among them so soon.

 

It will take a long while to heal the hurt in Firenze’s heart, even if his people did not have to learn to forgive and forget while studying stars.

 

“So it’ll be no worries.” Albus pats his bare shoulder, looking to the starry sky, and Firenze wonders what he sees there.

 

“But, what do you want to _do_?” And Firenze understands, and looks from the heavens, seeing the blue in Albus’ eyes, like the sky. It twinkles like the lightning.

 

“Teach.” It feels like a plea, but it is what Firenze has been pulled to do all his life. Albus chuckles as he pulls a paper from his pocket.

 

“I thought you might say something like that, so I drew up the paperwork to make you a Professor, part time, for Astrology and Divination. How does that sound?” Firenze nods with wordless wonder, agreeing, signing his name where Albus Dumbledore wants, and in a flash of green fire, like the eyes of Mars winking, it is done.

 

He’s home.


End file.
